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Autumn
trash. 12:30 AM. Photo: JH.
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If
you’re following
it, the matter of the (hardly)(not-so) auctioned
Jack Russell terrier at the Bette Midler Hulaween
party Monday night was almost solved. The original bidder reneged
behind the scenes, having
got his jollies playing Mr. Big to the house. The previous bidder
also very graciously backed off too. Having got his jollies,
no doubt. And very possibly Mr. Tony Danza, the
almost-won (at $8000) is going to take the puppy who’s
already had a sufficient taste of New York high-life and all
the acrobats who play in
the big tent.
Last night I started out at stupendous triplex of
Steve and Christine Schwarzman on Park Avenue where
they were hosting a “kick-off” party
for the 52nd annual Winter Antiques show (which takes place on
January 20 through 29 at the Seventh Regiment Armory on 67 and
Park).
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Margaret
Russell, Christine Schwarzman, and Arie Kopelman
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The Schwarzmans own a famous apartment in a building recently
immortalized by Michael Gross in the deeply engrossing (pardon
the pun) 740 Park; the Story of the Richest Apartment
Building in the World. The apartment was owned by John
D. Rockefeller Jr. who lived there from 1938 with his two successive
wives, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller and Martha
Baird Rockefeller until his death in 1960.
The second Mrs. Rockefeller died in the early 1970s and the mammoth
apartment was sold to one of the great tycoons of the go-go years,
Saul Steinberg. Mr. Steinberg and his wife Gayfryd sold it to
Mr. Schwarzman several years ago for what was a record price
of $31 million. To say that the space is splendid and palatial
is an understatement. However, like all great living spaces,
it is beautiful and beautifully appointed with magnificent floors
and cornices and chandeliers that make one inevitably appreciate
the artisanship and aesthetic privileges of being very rich.
Aside from that, it was a cocktail party with lots of people,
many of whom are associated with the East Side House Settlement
which benefits from the opening night of the show. This year’s
co-chairs of the opening night preview benefit are Margaret
Russell, editor-in-chief of Elle Décor and Arie
Kopelman. Mr. Kopelman
and his wife, Coco were there, as was Ms.
Russell, Barbara and Donald Tober, Steven Victor, Fernanda Niven,
Fernanda Kellogg and Kirk Henckels (the
Fernandas are cousins, both named after the same grandmother,
and both mothers of daughters with the
same name); Mario Buatta, Emily and Leslie Keno, Leigh
Keno, Lucinda Ballard, Stuart Feld, Karen Kemp Glover, Mitch
Keno,
Carl and Sabrina Forsythe, Wendy Moonan, and Eula
Johnson.
I was there long enough to take a picture of Ms. Russell, Mrs.
Schwarzman, and Mr. Kopelman as well as a picture in the vestibule
of the Schwarzmans’ amazing carved and lighted pumpkin.
Actually on first sight, it didn’t look like a real pumpkin,
but a plastic one because it was so intricately carved. It wasn’t
until I inspected it closely (after photographing) that I saw
what a work of art it was. So, besides one of the best apartments
in town, the S’s have undoubtedly one of the best Halloween
pumpkins. Another touch of New York – the town that shows
you what can be done. |
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The
Schwarzman pumpkin
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From
there I grabbed a cab eight blocks up to James and Toni Goodale’s where
they were having a dinner for His
Excellency Jan Eliasson, the President of the General
Assembly of the United Nations. Mr. Goodale is a lawyer and
the man who defended the New York Times in
the Pentagon
Papers case way back in those politically turbulent,
Viet Nam War times. Mrs. Goodale, besides being a wife and mother
and now a grandmother (it’s her and Mr.’s grandson
who’s holding on his mother’s ankle on the top of yesterday’s
Party Pictures), is also a major fundraising consultant in New
York. Occasionally (when we get to it) her valuable columns on
the art and technique of fund-raising are featured on the NYSD
philanthropy pages.
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Warren
Hoge, Lynn Sherr, and His
Excellency Jan Eliasson
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When the Goodales
entertain (at least in my experience), it is always an interesting
array of New Yorkers. Last night’s group included the Secretary
General
of the United Nations Kofi Annan and his wife Nane, who, like President Eliasson,
is a Swede; former Washington Post editor-in-chief (from the Woodward-Bernsteindays) Ben
Bradlee and his wife Sally Quinn, Charles Stevenson and Alex Kuczynski,
Warren and Olivia Hoge, Lynn Nesbit, Ron Silver, Nan and Gay Talese, Margaret
Carlson, Arthur and Alexandra Schlesinger, Jenny Conant and Steve Kroft.
There were three large tables. The menu was simple and simply delicious, starting
with a lobster and artichoke hearts, followed by rack of lamb, haricots vert
and acorn squash, served with red and/or white wine and completed with some kind
of chocolate dessert served with sorbet.
Conversation at our table went left to right (I
was seated between Ms. Nesbit and Nan Talese. Ms. Nesbit who
is a renowned literary agent had recently been
to Italy where she visited the villa of the Pecci-Blunts (see NYSD The
List)
which is still owned by the family and where they have one of the most sensational
gardens she’s ever seen. Mrs. Talese is a renowned book editor, with her
own imprint at Doubleday, as well as the wife of renowned author Gay
Talese (who
published a book on the New York Times back in the 1960s called The
Power
and the Glory) who is about to publish his latest book.
Nan Talese is being honored next week by the Board of Directors of the Mercantile
Library Center for Fiction with the First Annual Maxwell E. Perkins Award.
Maxwell Perkins,
if you didn’t know, was the great Scribner’s
editor who lived in the first third of the 20th century and nursed
and nurtured and
edited, among others, three quite different yet noisesome literary characters
named F. Scott Fitzgerald, Thomas Wolfe, and Ernest
Hemingway. About
twenty-five years ago, F. Scott Berg wrote his first biography about this man
who worked
in the old Scribners Building still standing on Fifth Avenue, commuting daily
from New Canaan, and brought 20th century American literature to the world. Who
would have thought that a book about a book editor would be riveting. Well, it
was, and is (you can find it somewhere in paperback).
Mrs. Talese, who is a lovely lady with a big bright round dark eyes, has the
soft melodic voice and the quiet, yet regal elegance of a portrait by John
Singer
Sargent, not to mention her Maxwell Perkins-like dedication to writers and literature.
So, as they say when they get the golden ring on the carrousel, lucky me.
President Eliasson of the General Assembly who has also represented
his country in Washington, was introduced in a toast by his host
Mr. Goodale. He said that
the nation’s capitol was a very quiet place compared to New York and at
first he wasn’t sure if he could take the adjustment. But soon he found
that there was an extra bounce to his gait and an energy in his nostrils just
from his travels along the sidewalks of the city, and he found himself, like
so many of us do, very excited to be in this great city of ours. |
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